


Closer to the Edge

by zosimos (trismegistus)



Series: Reverse'verse [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 19:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trismegistus/pseuds/zosimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I will never forget, I will never regret. I will live my life. One day, maybe we'll meet again.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Set in a post-series AU, where Edward has restored Alphonse's body and returned to the military to remain close to Roy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to the Edge

Edward Elric sighed, shrugging out of his heavily sodden coat and hanging it on the coat rack right inside the door. It had been a pretty afternoon, and he had shooed Havoc off; he was perfectly capable of walking back to base instead of wasting the military's resources on a car. After he had met Alphonse for lunch, Edward had gone on a brief stroll to clear his mind, and that was when the storm clouds rolled in.

Bangs plastered to his head, Edward wrung his ponytail out while still standing beside the coat rack, keeping the puddles in one place instead of tracking them across the tile. It was going to be slick enough in here before long with soldiers coming and going. Thunder rumbled outside the building, close by. It was a fierce storm.

He rubbed his right shoulder under the stiff blue outer jacket of the Amestrian military. It occasionally twinged and carried on with the weather, but he'd had no advance warning of this storm. Alphonse had mentioned something about the leaves while they sat in the café near the center of town but Edward hadn't been paying close attention to his words at that time, instead watching the man who was supposed to be watching them.

They were constantly under surveillance. It was a fact of his life that he'd quickly gotten used to, secret codes and signals and working outside the box. It gave him an entirely newfound appreciation for the plots that Mustang orchestrated that he even knew about – never minding the machinations that must have gone on behind the scenes he had been unaware of. This job was more than just the paperwork.

Alphonse was stationed in East City, something he had requested specifically. He wanted to be closer to Riesembool, where Pinako still held court. Edward was beginning to think that the old woman was going to outlive them all, he had no idea how old she was but she was as spry as ever. Winry had moved her business to East City to be with Alphonse when they both had still been stationed there. It wasn't long after that transition that Edward had been transferred to Central, and it was just as well. It gave Alphonse and Winry plenty of time together, and not surprisingly they had been married not five months after Edward had been transferred.

"They know you're up to something," Alphonse had told him over lunch. "You need to be more careful, brother."

Edward had only just smiled. It was a lazy smirk, something that just seemed to come naturally now. Alphonse had sighed and called him hopeless.

The rain pounded against the large windows in his office, streaking down the glass and obscuring the grounds outside. Several other soldiers, caught out in the unexpected squall, bolted haphazardly toward shelter, looking a little like drowned blue lemmings. He smiled at the thought, and put one gloved hand on the cooling glass.

_Did you have any idea I was capable of this?_

A knock came at his door and Edward half-turned, sliding his hand into the pocket of his trousers. It was Hawkeye, several folders in her arms. She looked critically at him, soaked mess that he was, but didn't comment on his state. "I have the paperwork for your recertification," she said. "As well as the required information about all the candidates who want to sit for the State Alchemist exams this year."

"Does the Board not think that I have enough to do?" Edward asked rhetorically as Hawkeye slid the folders to the top of growing pile on the desk, and then looked critically at the out-box, retrieving the handful of reports that he had glanced over earlier.

"The Board defers to your … superior knowledge of the content of the exams," Hawkeye said, master of tact that she was.

Edward frowned at her comment, and then glanced over at the top folder. "Wait, are they expecting me to conduct the interviews as well?"

Hawkeye merely looked at him, one eyebrow raised and Edward groaned. He rubbed his hand across his forehead; his bangs too limp with rainwater to brush back effectively. "Great."

"Your skill at getting things done quickly and effectively has not gone unnoticed, Colonel," Hawkeye said smoothly. "There aren't as many qualified applicants as in years past, many were turned away from the initial examination for several reasons." Her eyes were sharp and Edward felt very young sometimes when she looked at him like that.

Thunder boomed overhead, close enough to rattle the glass in the window frames. The overhead lights flickered for just a moment, but stayed on. "Unlike your predecessor," Hawkeye said pointedly, "You can work quite effectively despite the weather. I expect the rest of your reports on my desk before the end of the day, Colonel, sir."

Only Hawkeye could make a polite request that threatening. "Anything else for me, Captain?"

The silence stretched a moment longer than Edward anticipated. "I was contacted by a bookseller on the edge of town," Hawkeye said. "He said that several books you had ordered were in and waiting for you to pick them up."

Now it was Edward's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Interesting," he murmured.

"You are aware, sir, that if you require any specific books we can special order them from here."

"Quite," Edward said. "Thank you for the information, Captain. You're dismissed." Edward put one hand on the back of the black chair he spent far too much time in lately and looked back out the window, a neutral expression on his face as he thought.

*

_"You're such a lazy bastard. It's just a little rain."_

"It might just be a little rain to you, Ed, love, but it soaks through to the bone for me. I am awash, a useless waste in even the slightest mist-"

"You're so full of shit it's coming out your mouth again, Mustang."

"It's such a dismal day, clearly we are meant to stay in bed."

"It's a Tuesday! Let me go, some of us have work to do-!"

*

Putting aside the State Alchemist information, Edward skimmed through several reports, making notes and signing off of them. A lifetime of reading archaic alchemy texts, trying to devour information as if it was going out of style made Edward a quick reader by necessity. Alphonse's report about the situation in the East currently was the third one in his pile – and Edward slowed down.

Their code was so very simple in its complexity that Edward was certain no one would ever break it, because they'd have to be looking for it to know it was even there. It was in every report Alphonse ever sent in, just to keep in practice; and in every letter they brothers exchanged. Most of the time the code was random alchemical equations or a simple word game, but it kept them both in practice of carefully writing out their letters.

The East was just as stable as Alphonse's proper report made out, but he had more dire warnings for Edward in his coded message. The brass in East City didn't have a lot of kind words about the youngest Colonel in Amestrian history, but Edward had long since let those things slide off his shoulders. Otherwise he'd need to punch half the army and within his first week of his promotion both Havoc and Hawkeye had taken him aside and warned him to cool it before someone decided that he really was too young for this position.

That had been three years ago, though, and as much as Edward hated swallowing his pride they were right. He'd never been cut out for politics but when he decided to do this, when he decided to set out on this path that was never truly his to begin with he had to change the way he thought about a lot of things. It hadn't been easy, and still wasn't, but he had a strong group around him, and more allies in the military than his enemies suspected.

Alphonse's message was more to the point; it gave him more names of people to watch out for. A handful on the list Edward already knew and had under control, but several were new names and at least one was a fellow colonel who Edward thought he could count among his allies.

There was no point to getting discouraged. Edward filed the read report in the out box and sat back in his chair, legs crossed at the knee. It would still be a few years before he could move in any capacity toward his goal unless a new war broke out. He fervently hoped he would have to do this the hard way, because as much as the paperwork made him antsy he never wanted to have to go into battle again. The cost was too high, it wasn't worth it.

The rain still pattered against the window behind him, and Edward leaned his head into the high-backed chair as he thought. Then, idly, he picked up the file with the list of applicants for the State Alchemist's exam. The information listed was very sparse; the candidate's name, their specialty if they listed one, and what they got on the preliminary examinations. His eyes skimmed over the list, it was ordered alphabetically, but nothing jumped out at him. Seventeen people who probably had no idea what the hell they were getting in to with the military and the State Alchemist's exam. Edward knew exactly why they chose him to conduct the interviews – because they wanted him to try to warn away the alchemists from the position and then have something they could actually use against him in the future.

Seventeen applicants and the first batch of interviews were slated for … tomorrow. Edward groaned aloud and then looked at his desk; there were meetings out the ass tomorrow on top of this. He would have to put in extra hours tonight just to get all the paperwork done.

Right on cue, the door to his office opened and Havoc appeared with a cup of coffee. Edward looked at him, only a little surprised at his appearance. "You have got to teach me your reading minds trick, Lieutenant."

"Nah, you don't want that," Havoc said, depositing the (larger than average, thank you very much) mug on Edward's desk, wisely away from the brunt of the paperwork. "People don't think a lot of interesting things."

"Still, could be entirely useful for my purposes," Edward said. He eyed the coffee suspiciously; it seemed to be a slightly lighter shade than its usual tar-like coloration. "There's not any milk in this, right?"

"No milk whatsoever, boss," Havoc said patiently. "Your brother fixed the coffee maker this morning."

"It was broken?"

"You were the only one still drinking the coffee that dripped out of it, I don't know how you weren't seeing double from the strength of it."

Edward took a sip of the new and improved coffee and made a slight face, it was less palatable but still drinkable. "I need you to do me a favor," Edward said.

"Boss, I'm not breaking the coffee machine."

"No," Edward said. "I need you to go over to a small bookshop at the edge of town." He held up a piece of paper folded over between two fingers as he sipped his coffee.

"Is this about that book order?" Havoc said, taking the slip of paper from Edward. He opened the piece of paper and glanced over it, before tucking it into the pocket on his military uniform. "Is there anything else?"

Edward raised an eyebrow. "What am I thinking now, Lieutenant?"

Havoc paused, and frowned. "You're thinking about fried food." Edward grinned sharply and Havoc saluted. "Understood, sir."

"Good," Edward rumbled, picking up another file with one hand and looking at it. "You're dismissed."


End file.
